


living cage

by pocketpauling



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom
Genre: Gen, and how terrifying that might have been, ehh the others are mentioned but theres no dialogue so who cares, just some tommy thoughts, thinking about xen being so red so fleshy, wow! its a game in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25319884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketpauling/pseuds/pocketpauling
Summary: thoughts on tommy in xen. scary, scary place full of fleshy, fleshy things.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	living cage

tommy didn't turn and run at any point throughout his adventures in black mesa, didn't cower in fear even when he was so overwhelmingly afraid, didn't abandon his friends - beside that one time, maybe - but in this moment, watching gordon reach out and touch the spiral, the red sun, he... he hesitated.

xen was a terrifying place. he'd tried to keep his chin up, tried to follow the group, tried so hard to pretend he was doing fine enough to continue on. but the gravity here was _wrong_ , everything was so _wrong_. the architecture bled into the terrain, bled into meat and bones, writhing tentacles, pools of not-quite-water that trapped the strange fauna, trapped his shoes, trapped his team. was it all alive? if he tried hard enough, strained his ears enough, got close enough, would the walls breathe?

was the ground moving? the ground always felt like it moved here, and tommy had to try his hardest not to trip on a lump of - floor? flesh? - that he hadn't seen. or hadn't been there before.

it didn't matter. tommy was going to repress this memory so fucking hard, it'll _never_ see the light of day.

gordon disappeared in a flash of light, and bubby and dr coomer followed close behind. diligently, like good little ai. good little pieces of code, that followed their narrative arc.

what was tommy's narrative arc? did it end here? was this the end? sure felt like it.

he hesitated for a second too long, felt the oppressive itch in the back of his head, inside of his skull, the voice without a voice that urged him to follow. he's a member of the team, after all. team members follow their leaders. fight with them. don't question it.

it was a string. a length of barbed wire, a pair of handcuffs, zip-ties too tight wrapped around his wrist, pulling him onwards. if he stopped, he'd - well, he might lose a hand, too. metaphorically, of course - the game may very well just outright kill him off. another scientist casualty, less nameless than those before him, but still of no consequence to the story.

he's not sure if his father would bat an eye - not because he didn't care, necessarily, but because the game would erase him from existence so summarily that no one would remember. aside from gordon, maybe. if he's lucky.

but what’s the point of that, anyway? if the game is going to end, and it’ll be turned off? and all of them will be gone? there’s no point to any of this anymore. gordon’s anger at benry, as justified as tommy felt it had been in the moment, is nothing, now. why be angry over a model of a hand? no one knows what’s waiting for them after this, regardless. certainly not a home, not a son, not a life.

and what’s more horrifying? the visceral horrors of xen, or the existential horror of not knowing what comes after? he doesn’t know. he doesn’t know if he can weigh them against each other at this point.

what crushes a human skull easiest? a ford f-150, or a chevy silverado? does it even matter?

his mind begs him to reach out, try to touch the portal, and he does so without meaning to – he can’t pull his fingers away, can’t fight the instinct to do what he’s told he has to. it’s static, all of it, oppressively loud, but he can’t hear it. he can only feel it, radiating in sickening waves, making him want to flinch back, but he can’t. he can’t think straight anymore, just follow the pulsing red lines, in towards the center.

the moment he makes contact, the world flashes, and he falls.

it’s not entirely clear to him from what height he’s falling, but when he hits water – _not water_ – he knows he’s fine. nothing’s broken, for sure, no pain to speak of. just the leftover adrenaline, anxiety of the sudden drop, which had faded when dr coomer stood over him, smiled, offered his hand. tommy took it with little hesitation, and finally turned his eyes to the large cavern they had found themselves in.

the anxiety let itself back in.

“it’s like we’re in a, uh – ” and he found himself at a loss for words almost instantly. gordon was shushing the group, but it wasn’t necessary. tommy hadn’t found the words, not when he looked away from the impossibly high ceiling and into the center of the water, the _not-water_ , benry’s form low and too, too big.

there were bones at odd angles, his face fully in the – blood, tommy was sure it was blood, now. benry’s face was submerged in it, his body lifeless and broken, unmoving.

gordon stepped forward, and tommy stepped back.

he backed up, again and again, and dr coomer and bubby didn’t so much as glance at him as he did it – they were too focused on benry, who had shifted, brought his head up so suddenly, opened his mouth and started rambling, and it was so clear he didn’t have anything planned. didn’t want to be the big bad. didn’t want this, no one wanted this, tommy doesn’t _want_ this.

his back hit the cavern wall, and it gave a bit from the pressure, leaked something warm and sticky into the back of tommy’s already soaked lab coat. wiggled a bit against the fabric, breathed and creaked like old bones.

he yelped and stumbled forward, causing bubby to look back at him in alarm, quick worry, and then disapproval, like he was unbothered. like tommy should know better than to be afraid now, here, after everything.

but even with the vastness of this cavern, the walls were fully sealed, no way out. the blood pool that filled the bottom, the subtle movement in the walls, all of it left him with the mounting feeling that he was in a living cage. if a tin can was made of meat instead, a hollowed out human chest, the bones knitting together like a chain-link fence. impossibly big, impossibly empty, and benry standing as the deformed heart in the center of it all.

the little voice without a voice, the code he had to follow, _all_ of it let him know, in no uncertain terms, that benry was going to die here. by their hands. and that’d be the end of it.

so smile, thomas, and have a good time. make it fun for the player. and pray that what comes after the credits doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as dr coomer theorized it would.

**Author's Note:**

> needed some practice w more poetic? phrasing? and imagery related to horror but i kinda whiffed it lol. nothin makes a lotta sense here, but thats ok i think. 
> 
> i think a lot abt all of them being aware of the code at some point in the story. i think tommy probably knew from the beginning but didnt wanna worry anyone


End file.
